


Echoes

by Dr_Snakes_MD



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Jon Snow Knows Something, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 06:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20372140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Snakes_MD/pseuds/Dr_Snakes_MD
Summary: Three years after the events in King's Landing.





	Echoes

The North had come alive. There was no greater indication of the Night King’s demise than the greenery that blurred beneath Drogon’s wings; greenery that, if _he_ was to be believed, had been smothered by snow even in the height of Summer. It may not have been warm, but it was a far cry from the desolate land that had claimed her son.

That some positive had come from her disastrous conquest of Westeros was a cold comfort. She hadn’t spent much time thinking about any benefits her presence had caused the past three years. Seeing lush trees and budding flowers was a surprise, but not one worth reveling in.

Daenerys flattened herself against Drogon’s back and let her eyes drift closed. The all-familiar rage bubbling beneath the surface was almost too easy to wrap herself with. It called to her, her birthright, and even three years removed from her resurrection it took all she had to not give in, turn her son south, and rain fire on those who had once conspired against her.

Drogon rumbled beneath her, sensing her distress through their bond, and Dany smiled. She flooded their connection with warmth, pulled from her dark musings for at least a moment by the implacable creature she rode. _You’ll never betray me, and that is enough_.

Her mood returned as her last son settled, his wings flapping twice as he caught an updraft, their intended destination ringing in her mind. She’d given herself three years; three years to remember how to live, to cope, to come to terms with what they’d done to her.

Three years to come to terms with what _she_ had done.

Echoing screams of anguish managed what even Drogon could not, beating back the tide of fury that called for her usurpers’ blood until it was but a whisper in the recesses of her mind.

She’d awoken sometime in her second year wanting to find him; _needing_ to find him. For what purpose she’d yet to ascertain, even as her son took her to him, but it was a call nearly as strong as the rage she worked tirelessly to keep at bay. Resisting it was a learned practice, one she was thankfully acquainted with by the time it reared its head in her subconscious, but one made all the more difficult by the fact that she knew Drogon could take her to him.

Dany wasn’t sure how she knew it – perhaps it was some innate Targaryen trait, perhaps he had imprinted on her son when they’d met, perhaps Drogon could simply smell him a world away – but know it she did. So, instead of doing what she wanted and immediately flying across the Narrow Sea, she practiced the restraint her second life had given her the chance to learn. The restraint _he_ had always counseled from the first time she had turned to him in search of the way forward.

Instead, she gathered information. Westeros was restless, which made spies even easier to come by than they already were. Sansa Stark’s independence had emboldened Dorne, and King Bran the Broken, for all his clairvoyance, was embroiled in a war that was doing its best to bankrupt the fledgling crown. She’d been triumphant at the news, cold laughter that had brought her to tears had echoed through the Great Pyramid for what had seemed like hours. Her vindication had passed at news of _him_.

Oathbreaker. Kinslayer. Banished beyond the wall for the murder of Queen Daenerys. The sheer hypocrisy had nearly turned her stomach. They had lauded him as a king, pushed his claim over her own and, when he’d delivered what they wanted, condemned him to exile.

Her ire on his behalf had shocked her for a moment. She’d expected to hear of him crowned king; Aegon Targaryen, Sixth of His Name. She knew he didn’t want the crown, had believed him the many times he had insisted such. He’d never been a gifted liar. He was, however, a slave to his duty, whatever he thought that was.

Not for the first time, Dany cursed Ned Stark and the thrice damned honor he’d imparted on his nephew. She cursed him nearly as often as she cursed herself.

Drogon dove suddenly, shattering her musings. Black wings tucked tight to his body, her son dropped into a descent so steep it was nearly vertical. Dany held on with confidence even as her stomach dropped like a leaden weight as they fell; Drogon wouldn’t do anything she couldn’t handle, she knew.

The ground approached at an alarming rate, and just as Dany began to feel a thread of unease, Drogon’s wings snapped out. The breath was knocked from her chest as their momentum halted abruptly. She gasped for a moment, coughing air back into her lungs as they hovered five feet off the ground before dropping the last bit. The landing was soft, by comparison, though Drogon’s growl was nearly enough to shake the leaves from the trees that surrounded them.

Peering over her son’s spikes – now as large as her torso – Dany surveyed the clearing they’d landed in. It was barely large enough to fit them; the evergreens that pressed in on them from all sides cast long shadows in the mid-afternoon light, their depths still well shaded and difficult for her eyes to pierce.

Drogon had no such trouble, letting out an ear splitting roar that blew the needles from their branches. She felt the hairs on her arms stand up beneath her fur cloak as gooseflesh rippled over her. _Will you run?_ she wondered. A bizarre panic gripped her, stealing the breath from her lungs. Her stomach bottomed out as she felt sweat bead along the back of her neck despite the cold.

This close to her goal, to the man who’d _killed her_, she was losing her nerve. The very thought was enough to bring the tempered rage roaring back to the surface, and she banished her traitorous feelings like dust in the wind. _A dragon is not a slave_, Dany repeated in her head. Not to anyone, not even fear.

Not even death.

Movement in the shadows of the trees drew her gaze. Dany inhaled sharply as he stepped out of the forest’s cover, his gait measured.

Jon Snow looked not as she remembered. His hair was shorn short where curls had once framed his face or been pulled back. His beard, rather thin and untamed in her memories of him, was fuller and better groomed in contrast to the wilderness she found him in. He wore no armor, a simple gambeson the color of dirty snow rested upon shoulders that, while not truly broad, were a far cry from the lithe frame he’d once sported. Longclaw was sheathed at his waist, tied by an unadorned leather belt.

Dany wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find in him. A man grown, somehow, had never even been considered.

Grey eyes found her atop Drogon, halting her appraisal in its tracks. She stared him down, mind racing in time with her heart as it tried to beat its way out of her chest. There was no shock in his gaze and, unbidden, Dany felt her hackles rise. She’d envisioned this encounter for the better part of a year and already he was subverting her expectations. He was too calm, too unaffected for her to be anything resembling comfortable.

_His hand isn’t even on his bloody sword!_

As if reading her thoughts, he reached down, hands fiddling with his belt for a moment before managing to unbuckle it. He grasped Longclaw, still sheathed, by the blade, holding it aloft for a moment before casting it aside with a grand sweep of his arm. It landed with a soft thump in the grass some fifteen feet from him. A knife hidden in one of his boots followed a moment later.

_Surrender?_ He was clearly trying to put her at ease. And while it didn’t work – nothing could put her at ease for _this_ – she could recognize the attempt for what it was.

Dany shifted her legs, twisting her body so that she faced one side fully and slid down Drogon’s black scales with practiced ease. Landing lightly upon the grass, she exhaled hard knowing her son’s bulk still hid her frame, composing herself one final time.

He hadn’t advanced at all, she noted as she left Drogon’s shadow. He stood firm, hands at his sides, expression unreadable from this distance. Dany found herself advancing toward him, doing her best to match that same measured gait he had exited the forest with, neither too quick nor too slow.

“You don’t seem surprised,” she called. Her voice was somehow strong despite the confusing rictus of emotion roiling beneath the surface. It was odd enough that anger wasn’t the first of them and it left her unbalanced.

Jon Snow didn’t flinch. She thought she saw his lips twitch, but it was gone so fast it was hard to tell. “The Red God brought me back,” he returned, a bit hoarse. It was unlikely his voice got much use this far north; she hadn’t seen an encampment for leagues. “No reason he wouldn’t have brought you back as well.”

“You seem unconcerned, as well.” A thread of anger beat through her chest at his attitude. She hadn’t expected him to throw himself at her feet and beg forgiveness, didn’t want it, in truth, but this irreverence cut more than Dany wanted to admit. “Do you think, perhaps, that I’m _not_ here to kill you for what you did?” At his continued silence, a thought entered her mind that stole the wind from her sails. “Or perhaps you wish that I would,” she said, voice suddenly a whisper.

At this he did smile: a bitter, twisted thing without a hint of mirth. Dany found she hated it immediately. “It wouldn’t have been the first time the thought crossed my mind, but no. You’d be well within your rights to do so, I killed those that ended my first life after all. But I no longer yearn for death.”

The leaden weight that had settled in her chest at his seeming indifference lifted a touch, startling her. She still cared for him, she realized, the truth all but clubbing her over the head. Fury returned with the realization. _Are you so weak that you cannot even hate the man that killed you?_

“Do you even regret it?” she spat.

“Of course I _regret_ it!” Jon roared, countenance suddenly shattered. Dany flinched, remembering his rage in the throne room, but held her ground. Drogon rumbled his displeasure next to her.

Grey eyes cut to her final son. He didn’t cower – it wasn’t in his nature, even now – but he did soften a touch. “How could I not? I loved you, Daenerys.”

Words couldn’t describe how thankful she was he hadn’t called her ‘Dany,’ as he’d taken to over the course of the war. She might’ve come completely undone, for better or worse.

“More than anything I regret driving you to it,” Jon finished, his gaze finally leaving hers. “I’ve had nothing but time to think. I cannot imagine how alone you felt those days. After Winterfell, after Varys…after Rhaegal and Missandei.” She flinched again at the mention of her dearest friend. “I regret much, but I regret that most of all.”

Rage failed her. Her own regrets could fill the Narrow Sea, she was sure.

_“Children! Little children _burned_!”_

“I can still smell the ash,” Dany said, turning her own eyes from Jon. They drifted to Drogon, larger than ever, Balerion reborn. All the power in the world, power she had commanded. And to do what? “I can still feel it on my skin. I can still hear their screams. To this day I don’t know what I was _thinking_,” she choked. “I’ve thought of it every day for over three years and I cannot, _still _cannot fathom what possessed me that day.”

_Fire and blood_, she heard echoing in her mind. There had been rage, certainly, but she refused to believe that rage alone had sustained her. It hadn’t in the throne room, she remembered.

_“All the other people that think they know what’s good…”_

_“They don’t get to choose.”_

A fresh wave of anguish gripped her at the memory. Words so carelessly spoken, the declaration she knew had steeled his resolve that day. He hadn’t wanted to kill her, that much had been clear even as he slipped his dagger between her ribs. The last thing she’d seen were tears in his eyes, not triumph.

“I didn’t leave you much choice, did I?” Dany asked, voice a whisper on the wind. Jon said nothing, not that she expected him to. He couldn’t absolve her, nor should he. She didn’t deserve it.

She could see his body shifting slightly beneath his clothes, itching to do _something_. Comfort her, perhaps? He certainly looked torn enough, face a canvass of torment. She banished the thought as it appeared. He had always been a man of action; he was ill-suited for such a situation.

“You’re not what I expected,” Jon said suddenly, startling her. He scoffed a moment later, averting his eyes at some discomfort. “Though you never were, so I’m not sure why it should surprise me now.”

Offense rose to the top of her emotions, but it was quelled quickly; she’d assumed the same of him mere minutes ago. And given their last interaction, it wasn’t out of the question, drunk on power as she’d been in those last moments of her first life.

“You expected me, then?” Dany asked instead.

Jon shook his head and ran his fingers through his close-cropped curls. “Aye, in a way I suppose. The Raven said Drogon was flying east. From what I know of Essos, red priests are in abundance.” It took her a moment to place who he was speaking of before she realized he meant his cousin the king. “I tried never to hope, but couldn’t help thinking what I’d say if I ever saw you again.”

Her stomach swooped as if Drogon was diving, breath catching in her throat. “And what is that?”

His eyes pinned her. “That I failed you. And I’ll never be able to express how truly sorry I am for it,” Jon managed, voice tearing in his throat. “You deserved better.”

Dany choked back a sob. Utterly unprepared for rising torrent of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her, knowing that, across from her, he felt the same. “I did. And so did you. I’m sorry, Jon. I’m so sorry.”

Her vision blurred, and the next thing she knew she’d been wrapped up. Her hands went to his chest, one balled and weakly hitting him, the other fisting itself in his gambeson to pull him closer. Dany gasped, finally letting the tears flow freely down her cheeks. _It is absurd_, she thought from a very great distance. That she would find comfort in the arms of the man who’d wronged her so made both no sense and all the sense in the world.

She felt his body wracked with tremors, knew he was experiencing the same agony as she, and wrapped her arms around him. Dany wasn’t sure how long they stood there, coiled about each other, her head buried in his chest and his in her hair. She found it didn’t matter. There was no joy to be found in his pain; not even vindication.

“We’ve fucked this up, haven’t we?” Jon said some time later, once they’d beaten back their grief.

Dany couldn’t help the gasping laugh that escaped her at his words. _You never were an eloquent man_. “We have,” she breathed. She pulled her head from his chest to glance up at him, finding him staring down at her with some indecipherable emotion in his eyes.

That familiar heaviness that had existed between them once he’d pledged his fealty to her, before he’d come to her chambers on their boat, settled. It was both familiar and, strangely enough, pleasant.

Dany extricated herself from his arms without a second thought. She’d taken three years to even fly west in search of him; she knew herself well enough to know she wasn’t ready for anything more. Even being this close to him was a shock.

A palpable relief coursed through her when she met his eyes, seeing calm understanding reflected there. In this, they were in agreement.

“You know I haven’t forgiven you,” she found herself saying. It felt silly, true as it was. That she could weigh her own life against thousands made a small voice in her head scream at the injustice of it all, but she had grown used to guilt.

“And I you,” Jon returned. “Where will you go from here?”

Dany was both grateful and a little sad he’d had tact enough not to say ‘we.’ “I don’t know,” she told him honestly. “I haven’t gotten that far. Perhaps south. Perhaps back east. Perhaps further west.”

He didn’t flinch at her mention of south, either not believing her a threat to his family or not caring.

“Will I see you again?” he asked instead, voice carefully neutral. It took all of her resolve to force her lips to keep from smiling. He’d never been a good liar.

She took him in, this man she had loved, this man who had failed her; the man she had failed in return.

“Yes. I think you shall.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've read a lot of these post S8 fix-its. My take on how Dany and Jon would react is a bit different from what I've seen so far. Have a hard time believing that Dany would be on some massive crusade against those who'd wronged her. Also have a hard time believing Jon, despite feeling guilty, wouldn't have found ways to move on. 
> 
> Hope my first foray into GoT is enjoyable.


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